Continuum robots offer a number of potential advantages over traditional rigid link robots in certain applications, particularly those involving reaching through complex trajectories in cluttered environments or where the robot must compliantly contact the environment along its length. The inherent flexibility of continuum robots makes them gentle to the environment, able to achieve whole arm manipulation, and gives rise to a unique form of dexterity the shape of the robot is a product of both actuator and externally applied forces and moments. However, existing designs for continuum robots provide a limited range of motion and thus limit their usefulness.